Through these and many similar difficulties, has this extraordinary man found his way to eminence. Without attempting to chronicle the stages of his progress, it will be enough to state that a writer of last year describes him as at present acquainted with eighteen languages, besides his native English, viz:—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Samaritan, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Ethiopic, Italian, French, Spanish, German, Danish, Irelandic, Esthonian, Bohemian, and Polish.[200] He is author of several works, and was for some time Editor of a Journal entitled “The Christian Citizen.” As in the case of Dr. Lee, no attempt is made, in either of the biographies of Burritt which I have consulted, to define with exactness the degree of his knowledge of each among the various languages which he has learned; but if his proficiency in them be at all considerable, his position among linguists must be admitted to be of the very highest; and as he is still only in his forty-sixth year, it would be difficult to predict what may be the limit of his future successes. § VII. LINGUISTS OF THE SLAVONIC RACE. The extraordinary capacity of the Slavonic races for the acquisition of foreign languages, has long been a subject of observation and of wonder. In every educated foreign circle Russians and Poles may be met, whom it is impossible to distinguish, by their language, or even by their accent, from the natives of the country: and this accomplishment is frequently found to embrace the entire range of the polite languages of Europe. In the higher native Russian society, it is rare to meet one who does not speak several languages, besides his own. Every candidate for public office in Russia, especially in connexion with foreign affairs, must be master of at least four languages, French, German, English, and Italian; and in the Eastern governments of the empire, are constantly to be found employés, who, to the ordinary stock of European languages, add an equal number of the dialects of the Asiatic races subject to the Czar. In most cases, however, this facility in the use of foreign languages enjoyed by the natives of Russia and Poland, is chiefly conversational, and acquired rather by practice than by study; and, among the numbers who, during the last three centuries, must be presumed to have possessed this gift in an eminent degree, very few appear to have acquired a permanent reputation as scholars in the higher sense of the name.